Every goal kick takes crossing and passing stats into account. I had a keeper who's defensive rating was 4 star but his offense was 2 star for the longest time. It wasn't until I raised his offense to 3 star that I saw his rating improve from 5-6 to 6-8.

I personally won't take a keeper that's shorter than me (194cm) but I don't think that it plays too much into the overall calculations unless if the average height is calculated per team and the winner is assigned a possession bonus or something.

But back to that game, I was appalled at the refereeing, so biased lol!